Why choose wallpaper

Homeowners often choose paint to add color and character to a room. However, not to be forgotten is wallpaper. Depending on your floor plans and your personal tastes, it may be worth hanging up the paint brush in favor of a pair of scissors. Here are the pros and cons of papering your walls:

Advantages
Wallpaper is usually more expensive than paint in terms of initial cost, but it also affords homeowners a greater range of decoration that may not be achievable with paint. While paint is usually applied as solid colors or simple geometric designs such as stripes, wallpaper can come in intricate patterns simply not feasible with the drippy stuff. Ornate wallpaper may look great in homes based on country house plans, where flourished pattern could lend to the ambience. The plan in this home could easily be spruced up with some ornament.

Another benefit of wallpaper is the ease of application. While it may require some finesse to perfectly align the paper on the wall, it is a lot cleaner to apply than paint.

Disadvantages
The major downside to wallpaper is its longevity. While putting it up can be somewhat difficult, taking it down is even more of a chore. Paint, conversely, while more messy, is easy to cover up and redo. Also, wallpaper can start to peel or bubble in humid climates. This isn't as big of a problem as long as a home is air-conditioned, but should your HVAC break once, moisture in the air could wreak havoc on the walls.

A final consideration is taste. You should pick your wall decorations based on your own personal preferences, but you should also take into consideration design trends. Often, people find themselves liking what's currently in vogue, only to find that a particular design choice has fallen out of fashion years later. This may not be a problem in terms of appealing to your own tastes, but you may find it more difficult to match furniture and other decorations down the line to outdated patterns. Wallpaper is a commitment.

The verdict
You may want to consider wall paper if you would like particularly detailed wall decorations and are happy to live with your decisions for a long time afterward. However, if you are prefer more solid wall colors and are liable to change your mind frequently, then paint is probably the better choice.If you think you fall somewhere in between, you can always accent one wall with wallpaper.